and a
woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm
supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your
little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a
strange place. For my part, I will go around among the neighbors, and
find out where she belongs."

The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings;
for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given
way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband.
Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept
murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good
Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlor-door carefully
behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged
from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate, when he was
recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a
thimbled finger against the parlor window.

"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face
through the window-panes. "There is no need of going for the child's
parents!"

"We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he re-entered
the parlor. "You would bring her in; and now our poor--dear-beau-ti-ful
little snow-sister is thawed!"

And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so
that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in
this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might
be going to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an
explanation of his wife. She could only reply, that, being summoned to
the parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the
little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow,
which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the
hearth-rug.

"And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a
pool of water in front of the stove.

"Yes, father," said Violet looking reproachfully at him, through her
tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!"

"Naughty father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and--I shudder to
say--shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man. "We told you
how it would be! What for did you bring her in?"

And the Heidenberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to
glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the
mischief which it h